[6][7] The Thompson Fields comes with over fifty pages of liner notes containing photographs, drawings, and Schneider's thoughts about nature.

[8] In Stereo Review magazine, music critic Fred Kaplan called the album a masterpiece and ranked Schneider with big band composers Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Gil Evans, adding that she worked as an assistant to Evans and Bob Brookmeyer early in her career.

'"[9] In The New York Times, Nate Chinen wrote that she is borrowing methods used by Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis but that she has her own way of "using timbre and harmony to bring a tactile presence to the dimensions of sound."

[10] Doug Ramsey at Arts Journal called The Thompson Fields a suite because of "its unity of style and its mood of reflection.

"[7] In the UK, Ivan Hewett of The Daily Telegraph comments on the importance of the liner notes, the bird paintings by Audubon, and how the music mimics the Minnesota landscape's "quality of being both huge and intimate.